Passengers, crew walk away from Era crash

A Federal Aviation Administration car is parked Thursday at the Homer Airport next to the Era Alaska Beechcraft 1900C airplane that crashed on Wednesday. The plane has been raised on its landing gear. A carbon fiber composite propeller shows damage, as does one flap on the wing.-Photo by Michael Armstrong, Homer News

All 13 passengers and two crew members on an Era Alaska flight walked to safety after the plane’s landing gear apparently collapsed as it was arriving in Homer Wednesday afternoon.

The Beechcraft 1900C airplane skidded from the east end of the main runway to near the terminal building. The incident happened about 3:30 p.m.

Homer Volunteer Fire Department firefighters and emergency medical technicians responded and evaluated the passengers and crew, but no one needed transportation to the hospital, Chief Bob Painter said in a press release.

A Homer Airport rescue firefighter with the airport rescue truck arrived on scene first and reported no leaking fuel or fire, Painter said.

“It was a landing roll which turned into a landing slide,” said National Transportation Safety Board investigator Clint Johnson of Anchorage.

Shelley Gill, a Homer writer on the plane, said the plane weaved back and forth on its belly across the runway “like a drunk driver.” She said the pilot was very calm during the landing.

“You just wait for that wing tip to drop down when you’re skidding 100 mph on your belly and you’re done,” Gill said. “It didn’t happen. I don’t know if it was something she (the pilot) did, but if it was something she did, she ought to get a medal.”

Chris Russ, a Homer passenger waiting to board the plane for the return flight to Anchorage, said no one noticed the crash until people in the terminal saw the plane sitting on its belly. He said he then saw passengers and crew walking into the terminal.

“The look on their faces — they looked like some people who felt pretty lucky,” Russ said.

When the Beechcraft first touched down at the eastern end of the runway, Gill said she felt the landing gear roll for a few seconds, and then one wheel collapsed and then the other.

“You felt the tires blow and then we were on our belly skidding very fast,” she said.

Gill sat one seat behind the exit door over the right side of the wing. She told a man sitting in front of her to be prepared to get ready to leave the plane. Everyone acted calm, Gill said. Some smoke from burning tires came into the cabin when the copilot opened the door. People got out of the plane smoothly and safely, she said.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation, Johnson said. Federal Aviation Administrator officials are on scene in Homer and working with Era to remove two recorders, a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder. Those will be sent to NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C., for analysis. Those results will determine the next phase of the investigation, including a mechanical inspection if needed. The Beechcraft is secure in a hangar.

The Era plane that crashed is the same model as a Ryan Air Beechcraft 1900C that crashed Nov. 23, 1987, at the Homer Airport on a flight from Kodiak. That crash killed 18 people, including two flight crew members and 16 passengers. The NTSB determined the Ryan Air Beechcraft had not been properly loaded and crashed when its center of gravity shifted and airplane control was lost.